I am honored to announce the 2021 edition of Chicago Open. The date and time for this tournament will be determined in early 2021.

TOURNAMENT PRODUCTION TEAM

I will be serving as head editor of this tournament. Ike Jose will be providing oversight. Subject editing will be handled by myself (history, music, social science, modern world/geo), Ike (lit, philosophy, vis art, and other ac), Jonathen Settle (some science), Ryan Humphrey (some science), and Brad McLain (beliefs). Jacob O'Rourke will be handling logistics.

PACKET SUBMISSION AND FEES

This tournament will be held next summer, with no packet submission.

Please put your team name and members here! We will have a more official registration process outlined when future tournament information is made available.

The original submission schedule will be maintained here to give people an idea of what topics the final tournament will include:

Literature (5/4)

1/1 Long Fiction (novels)

1/1 Poetry (you can place epic poetry here if you emphasize its diction and words, as opposed to narrative)

1 Modern World (interesting current events and/or topics that are important to the current state of human affairs)

1 Other Academic (either interesting mixed academic or topics that don't fit in well above)

Final packets will be 20/20 powermarked packets condensed out of the above, with 4/4 of each of the Big Three overall and 0.66/0.66 chemistry and 0.33/0.33 data science and engineering specifically, 1 question each on Geo, Modern World, and Other Academic, and tiebreaker questions in each packet.

SET PHILOSOPHY

Tossups will be split roughly 40/60 between more challenging answerlines and ones that would be well-converted at ACF Regionals, respectively. Please note, though, that this does not mean that the "conceit" of the easier answers will necessarily be similar to those found at ACF Fall - we firmly believe that Chicago Open is the best place to push the boundaries of the academic canon. To keep difficulty in line, this set will aim to roughly replicate the bonus difficulty of the 2014, 2015, and 2019 editions of Chicago Open. In addition, there will be greater attempts to smooth out both tossup and bonus difficulty within and across categories more than previous COs, to maintain a more coherent set "feel" and player experience. We have written approximately 100 questions thus far and intend to continue adhering to this goal.

The distribution outlined above is highly specific in order to ensure that a wide range of subject matter is covered. Nonetheless, we're choosing not to experiment too much - a little less religion/myth, a little more Geo/MW/OAc, and some dedicated space for applied math, data science, and engineering questions. We mean to incorporate a lot of the best trends in modern writing and highlight topics that people have enjoyed hearing in many successful recent hard tournaments without sacrificing much.

We look forward to creating an awesome tournament experience for you all!

I don't think any of us would personally have a problem making it to the tournament that weekend, but the CO Trash team would prefer to avoid the weekend of August 1, since that conflicts with Trivia Nationals and could thus negatively impact our attendance. Luckily it looks like the July dates are winning anyway!

Due to winning the vote, July 18th is going to be the date for Chicago Open 2020. As for the location, vote for that in this poll! We'll keep the poll open for 2 weeks-ish, so expect a decision around the 21st.

Ike Jose is now co-head editing this tournament with me. The vision of the tournament will continue to be the same as outlined in the original post, including difficulty and "feel" of the tournament, and we are greatly looking forward to receiving your submissions!

Made a few clarifications to the OP, specifically nothing that every packet will have exactly one question (tossup or bonus) on each of Geography, "Modern World," and Other Academic. I very much look forward to continuing the trends of recent tournaments which have had excellent questions in all of these areas.

Also, I should note that July 17th is my birthday, so this tournament carries an extra layer of meaning for me - celebrating my birthday via quizbowl! If you'd like to give me a present, consider doing so by submitting a packet early with lots of creative, well-controlled questions

In light of the recent coronavirus epidemic, we are monitoring the situation and hope to make a definitive determination as to whether the date and/or location of this tournament needs to be moved within the next month. However, we will make all efforts necessary to ensure that Chicago Open is run this summer within the realm of feasibility.

To maintain maximum flexibility, we plan to keep the current submission schedule in place and greatly appreciate your cooperation.

1. This tournament is going to happen, in-person, on either the proposed original date or a delayed date.
2. We will make a decision on whether to reschedule this tournament by 11:59 PM on May 9th at the absolute latest, as additional information about the COVID-19 situation continues to come in and we get a better understanding of the summer situation.
3. We will be shifting to a packet submission optional model. It will be along the lines of WAO, in terms of half-packet and full-packet options with negotiable distributions. Discounts, however, will be much higher. Submission will be optional, but encouraged, for all teams.

1. This tournament is going to happen, in-person, on either the proposed original date or a delayed date.
2. We will make a decision on whether to reschedule this tournament by 11:59 PM on May 9th at the absolute latest, as additional information about the COVID-19 situation continues to come in and we get a better understanding of the summer situation.
3. We will be shifting to a packet submission optional model. It will be along the lines of WAO, in terms of half-packet and full-packet options with negotiable distributions. Discounts, however, will be much higher. Submission will be optional, but encouraged, for all teams.

I want to commend the editors for taking this approach in trying to have it on the original date, and obviously a delay to a later date if need be.

Zach Foster
North Myrtle Beach High School '09
George Mason University '13
University of Central Florida '15

This tournament has been postponed. A number of changes have been made to the original post in accordance - please re-read it for updates.

We are actively considering options for when to re-host this tournament, from a fall or winter tournament ("QuizMas") to a full postponement to summer 2021. We will make an update announcement of some variety no later than July 19th.

This tournament has been postponed. A number of changes have been made to the original post in accordance - please re-read it for updates.

We are actively considering options for when to re-host this tournament, from a fall or winter tournament ("QuizMas") to a full postponement to summer 2021. We will make an update announcement of some variety no later than July 19th.

If there were a winter tournament I would strongly prefer it be in a warmer location than Chicago.

This tournament has been postponed. A number of changes have been made to the original post in accordance - please re-read it for updates.

We are actively considering options for when to re-host this tournament, from a fall or winter tournament ("QuizMas") to a full postponement to summer 2021. We will make an update announcement of some variety no later than July 19th.

If there were a winter tournament I would strongly prefer it be in a warmer location than Chicago.

I was actually curious about this as well. Not that it would matter to me where the tournament is going to be held, but is changing locations something that is being considered If this tournament were held in the fall or winter?

Zach Foster
North Myrtle Beach High School '09
George Mason University '13
University of Central Florida '15

In light of the recent cancellation of ACF Nationals, this tournament is also postponed until the summer of 2021. Due to the fluid nature of the COVID situation, to avoid any potential issues regarding travel conflicts or lock people into teams prematurely, we have decided there will be no packet submissions for this tournament. We have further opted against attempting to schedule during the fall, winter, and spring due to the large number of tournaments already scheduled to be held during this time.

If you have already written questions for your packet, reach out to us and we will work with you - we anticipate that there will be significant demand for online tournaments, and there may be an opportunity to use these questions towards such a purpose and compensate you for them.